Thursday, November 3, 2016

A gracious loser? We can hope -- Nov 3, 2016 column

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will hold
victory parties but, before the night is over, one will concede defeat. If
we’re lucky.

We can take nothing for granted. To the end, Trump
remains a question mark. In his last debate with Clinton, he refused to say
whether he would accept the results of the election.

“I will keep you in suspense,” he said. It was outrageous,
provocative and pure Trump. He still appears likely to come up short in the
Electoral College, although polls have tightened in the last week.

One thing is certain, though. The American people have
suffered enough disappointment during this dispiriting campaign. Barring an
election disaster, the loser needs to accept the will of the voters with grace
and urge his or her followers to do the same.

The winner also must move immediately to begin
repairing the breach that has riven the country.

This presidential contest has always been more about
the candidates’ deficiencies than their policies. When the votes are finally counted,
it’s time for all of us to put the country first.

Our admirable American tradition holds that defeated
presidential candidates rise to the occasion for the sake of the greater good.
It’s reassuring to see failed candidates muster grace – and even humor -- at a
time of personal misery.

In 1908, after his third failed campaign for the White
House, Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan said: “I am reminded of the
drunk who, when he had been thrown down the stairs of the club for the third
time, gathered himself up, and said, `I am on to those people. They don’t want
me in there,’” William Safire wrote in “Safire’s New Political Dictionary.”

Going into the 1948 election, Thomas Dewey was
confident he’d beat Harry Truman – as were some newspaper editors. We’ve all seen
the screaming banner headline in the Chicago Daily Tribune, “DEWEY DEFEATS
TRUMAN.”

All night the votes came in. When Dewey awoke the next
morning to learn he’d lost, he sent a gracious telegram to Truman.

“My heartiest
congratulations to you on your election and every good wish for a successful
administration. I urge all Americans to unite behind you in support of every
effort to keep our nation strong and free and establish peace in the world,” he
wrote.

Asked by reporters what had happened, Dewey replied, “I
was just as surprised as you are . . . It has been grand fun, boys and girls. I
enjoyed it immensely.”

Four years later, when he lost to Dwight Eisenhower, Democrat
Adlai Stevenson said he was reminded of the story about Abraham Lincoln after
an election defeat. Lincoln said he felt like the boy who stubbed his foot in
the dark -- “too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.”

After the bitter 1960 presidential campaign, Richard
Nixon offered a quasi-concession statement to John F. Kennedy.

“If the present trend continues, Mister Kennedy, Senator
Kennedy, will be the next president of the United States,” Nixon told his
supporters in California about midnight Pacific time.

“I want Senator Kennedy
to know . . . that certainly if this trend does continue, and he does become
our next president, that he will have my wholehearted support and yours too,”
Nixon said.

Nixon was convinced voter fraud cost him the election
but he did not demand a recount despite JFK’s razor-thin margin of victory --
just over 100,000 votes out of 68 million votes cast.

1 comment:

Marsha, this is a model lesson in history about an exceptionally important matter. I hope Mr. Trump will see the light and be much more gracious in defeat than he has with his campaigning. Thank you for another excellent column!